Category: Uncategorized

Herald reporter charged in alleged assault

Boston Herald reporter O’Ryan Johnson has been charged with assault and battery following an altercation with a 74-year-old man in a Groveland laundromat, the Eagle-Tribune reports.

The story is leading Romenesko at the moment.

More: It turns out that Johnson was part of an Eagle-Tribune team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2003. The Tribune story mentions that Johnson is an alumnus but omits the Pulitzer. Odd oversight.

Johnson’s byline appears on only one of the Pulitzer-winning stories, but it was the first — an account of a tragic accident that claimed the lives of four boys who fell through the ice on the Merrimack River.

More ideas on saving the Globe

At the Nieman Journalism Lab, Martin Langeveld has some smart ideas for saving the Boston Globe. The one idea over which I disagree with him strongly is that the Globe should move away from a daily print edition. Langeveld writes:

My prediction is that, ironic as it may seem, Pat Purcell’s Boston Herald will be left as the only daily paper in Boston, and that the Globe will evolve into something different. That doesn’t mean the Herald wins, because in the long run, daily print is just not a sustainable business model anywhere. Or almost anywhere, if we want to hedge that bet a little.

Hard to disagree, but it all comes down to how you define “the long run.” Newspapers still make most of their money from print. Yes, Boston.com is the Globe’s most important news vehicle, but the print edition is still where the money is, and will be for some time to come.

Walter Cronkite is said to be gravely ill

Legendary anchorman Walter Cronkite is gravely ill, according to TVNewser columnist Gail Shister, citing “multiple CBS News sources.”

Cronkite, 92, wasn’t the first anchorman, but in many ways he invented the role. You can see the images just by thinking about them: Cronkite overcome with emotion after announcing the death of John Kennedy; the space flights; coming out against the Vietnam War; paving the way for the Israeli-Egyptian rapprochement by interviewing Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin even before President Jimmy Carter could get involved.

Cronkite, with his famous nightly sign-off (“And that’s the way it is”), was the embodiment of something close to a national cultural consensus, which doesn’t remotely exist today. Of course, there was much that was phony about that. But there was nothing phony about Cronkite. He was the real thing.

Photo of Cronkite in 1973 by Vin Crosbie and republished here under a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.

Comcast replaces NECN’s Kravetz

Comcast has finally completed its long-in-the-making takeover of New England Cable News — and the first thing it’s done is part ways with president and general manager Charlie Kravetz. According to the Boston Herald’s Jessica Heslam, Kravetz will be replaced by Bill Bridgen, executive vice president and general manager of Comcast SportsNet New England.

Johnny Diaz’s Boston Globe story is here. And here’s the official word.

I know nothing about Bridgen. I do know Kravetz, and he’s a first-rate newsman with a lifetime of experience. I don’t see how this can be good news, although it’s certainly possible that it was voluntary.

More on the Tiananmen analogy

It’s hard not to worry that the crisis in Iran will end in a Tiananmen Square-style massacre. Here is the Boston Phoenix editorial page:

Hope, even under a brutal medieval-minded regime, can be a political aphrodisiac. But hope alone, as the Chinese students who sought reform in Tiananmen Square 20 years ago found out, is no match for armed forces. Whether the death toll in Iran will come to equal that of the Tiananmen massacre and its aftermath remains to be seen.

Juan Cole has similar thoughts.

Greenway on Iran

Sharp analysis of the crisis in Iran by former Boston Globe columnist H.D.S. Greenway, now writing for GlobalPost. He begins:

Protests in the streets, angry crowds in numbers not seen since the revolution in 1979, have some people wondering if Iran is on the verge of revolution. But it’s more likely, if the street protests get out of hand, there will be a China-style Tiananmen, with voices crying for reform silenced by gun fire.

Greenway also gives President Obama high marks for not saying anything that would help Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “play the Great Satan card.”

We’re debating whether Obama has said enough here. It was also the subject of a Jeff Jacoby column in today’s Globe.

“Cluetrain,” 10 years on

Weinberger (left) and Searls

Last night I had a chance to see David Weinberger and Doc Searls, two of the co-authors of “The Cluetrain Manifesto,” speak at Harvard Law School. The conversation was moderated by law-school professor Jonathan Zittrain, co-founder of the school’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

The sound was not great, so I missed a lot. VisiCalc founder Dan Bricklin, credited with the invention of the spreadsheet, finally became frustrated enough that he got out of his seat and ran around with a little handheld microphone. But I did get a chance to score a signed (by Searls) copy of “Cluetrain,” which has been reissued on the occasion of its 10th anniversary.

I read “Cluetrain” online a couple of years ago as research for this. I anticipate getting a lot more out of it this time around, now that I have a print edition. A computer screen is still no way to read a book.

Cautious optimism over new Globe talks

“Beat the Press” blogger-in-chief Ralph Ranalli writes that Boston Globe staffers are now “cautiously optimistic” that the New York Times Co. and the Boston Newspaper Guild will come to an agreement in renewed talks, which resume next week.

And Ranalli asks an excellent question: How can the Times Co. stick to the 23 percent pay cut — based on its contention that the two sides are at an impasse — when management and the Guild are actively engaged in bargaining sessions?

Obama’s rope-a-dope

I’ve been as frustrated as anyone that President Obama hasn’t spoken out more forcefully about what’s taking place in Iran. But I’ve also heard a contrary view — that if he is seen as giving support to the reformist candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, he risks whipping up anti-American sentiment in favor of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Here’s a fascinating excerpt from an Arab-American blog being highlighted by Global Voices Online. I have no idea who the writer is, but what he or she says makes a lot of sense:

Whether or not Mousavi had the election stolen from him, it seems clear the ruling class has made a calculating move. Anti-American sentiment is one of the strongest cards those wretched clerics hold. By merely softening the tone Tehran hears from Washington, Obama has weakened their hand considerably. But re-instating Ahmadinejad ensures that US-Iranian relations will continue down a rocky road. What happens next is crucial. If Obama takes a firm position as a result of what’s happening, the mullahs may emerge victorious.

Writing for the Independent, Robert Fisk says there are hopeful signs that the Iranian security forces’ support for Ahmadinejad may be fading. That would be an enormously important development.